How many people live in Antarctica?

Mawson expeditioners at Proclamation Point (Photo: Ewan Curtis)

No more than a few thousand people live on the entire continent at the height of summer, and this decreases to just hundreds over winter. Australia's four stations have winter-time populations totalling around 80 in winter, rising to perhaps 200 in summer. In addition, marine scientists spend a lot of time on research boats in the Southern Ocean during the summer months. The most populous Antarctic centre is McMurdo Base on Ross Island, south of New Zealand, operated by the United States.

However, Antarctica is one of the rare pockets of the Earth that does not have an Indigenous population so every person that lives in or visits Antarctica is an alien!